Jesuit Cardinal, "Atheism Is The Enemy Of The Church"

Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J. recently remarked to the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich (Dr. John Robinson of Honest to God fame) : "the Counter-Reformation is over." Or to put it perhaps more realistically, that phase in the evolution of Catholicism which began at the Council of Trent as the "counter" to the Protestant Reformation has now exhausted its utility.

Protestantism is no longer the major enemy of Rome — outside Belfast at any rate. That position has now been taken up by atheism or, more precisely, by the scientific revolution of our era, which in the field of philosophy expresses itself as atheism — that is, by the exclusion of the supernatural from a universe autonomous and explicitly self-sufficient.

It is against this world view — one infinitely more alien and dangerous than even the most iconoclastic forms of Protestantism ever were — that Rome is now regrouping her forces and seeking new allies even amongst her former enemies.

Link (here)

Photo is of Cardinal Bea, S.J.